Cards. He circled one of the chairs and the stick figure. I’ll take this one. You take the one on the end. We’ll both go for the guy in the middle.

Three. That would take precision kills. Maestro’s target was the farthest from the door, but he had skills when it came to throwing a knife. He planned out his attack, going through the moves in his mind. It was imperative to take out his first target immediately and hit the second one before he could react. He had to be fast. Very fast. There were men in the room directly across the hall. There couldn’t be a sound, certainly not a gunshot. That meant the men at the card table had to die before they were aware they were under attack.

Once more, Maestro went over each move in his mind before he signaled to Keys it was a go. It was Keys who shoved the door open, giving Maestro the momentum of his throw. The easiest and best results when throwing a knife came from being square with your target, stationary, feet planted, shoulders pointed toward the target, elbows tucked and wrist locked. Follow-through was extremely important.

Maestro had practiced thousands of hours, throwing on the run. Each step was calculated, his feet squaring his shoulders in the perfect placement to his target. He had force behind his throw, so the blade penetrated the neck, slicing through the artery. He was throwing the second knife before the first had struck his target. He hadn’t dared to slow down; he had to reach his prey before either could recover from their shock enough to attempt to raise a gun or shout for help.

Normally, if the carotid artery was severed, it would take only five to fifteen seconds for death to occur. It was the one target Maestro practiced nearly daily to hit with efficiency. The artery was only one and a half inches below the skin. He didn’t have to carry huge knives to get the job done. He simply had to be accurate and extremely fast.

Keys had taken his man out as well, and the two of them left the dead behind, closing the door after themselves. Keys immediately went to the door across the hall, holding his palms close to the wood and dirt.

Code fed them information. I had to dig deep to find evidence of triplets. They weren’t born in the United States. Their parents were from here, but their mother went to Haiti to have them. She left their father and joined a cult, very enamored with the leader of the new religion. Her husband fought for the children, but he had ties to the local Mafia, and she claimed he beat her. She stayed in Haiti with the cult leader, a man who called himself Seradieu, which means “will be God.”

You can guess how those kids were treated, and the mother allowed it. She died under suspicious circumstances, and they came back to live with their father. That’s how they got into this business they’re in. By the time they came to the States, they were in their teens and already pretending to be one person. Their father left his estate to Alan Billows, his only son. He went along with their deception.

Keys held up his two fingers. Again, he drew stick figures in the dirt, positioning them exactly.

Maestro didn’t care about the information Code had given him on the Billows brothers. He didn’t need to know what had made them into monsters, he only knew they were monsters. Every member of Torpedo Ink had been tortured, had had family members murdered, had been subjected to physical, emotional, mental and sexual abuse. They didn’t traffic other human beings for money. They didn’t harm children. They were men and women who could shut off emotions and kill, but they didn’t kill indiscriminately. They had a code and they stuck to it. What Maestro cared about was getting to his woman and freeing her from monsters.

Two men were quite a bit easier to take down than three, but there could be no misses, no warning shots.

Get a move on. Code’s voice was tight. Derrick Billows is getting seriously ugly with Azelie. She isn’t giving you up, Maestro. She didn’t even throw Preacher or Widow under the bus. She’s taking everything they’re dishing out and looking innocent as hell. I’d believe her.

Maestro didn’t give a rat’s ass if the world believed her. The Billows brothers weren’t going to stop torturing her until she was dead. They had to kill her. They could never trust that she wouldn’t turn on them, not after the things they were doing to her.

He signaled Keys, pushed open the door and threw his knives, a quick one-two, killing both men before Keys could get into the room. He retrieved his knives, made certain both men were dead and hurried out, closing the door behind him.

Go, Keys, fast.

You go ahead of me, and I’ll check the doors leading to the room where she is, Keys said.

I’m in, coming up behind you, Player said. I’ll back up Keys. You go, Maestro.

The fact that Steele had changed the plan meant the situation was dire. Maestro sprinted through the tunnel, not making noise, but only because it had been ingrained in him not to. He trusted Keys and Player to have his back.

The door to the room where McGrady had been killed and Alan Billows interrogated was cracked open. He could hear the agony in Azelie’s voice as she tried to answer multiple questions Derrick shouted at her. Patrick’s voice was more calming, encouraging her to answer. He knew Azelie. She wasn’t thinking about answers to their questions. Uppermost in her mind was protecting the people she loved. He was one of those people.

Derrick made it impossible for her to answer. His purpose was to terrorize her, and he was doing so in a vicious, cruel way. The man had a knife in his fist, and the blade was bloody. Maestro didn’t make the mistake of looking at Azelie to assess the damage. There were two men assaulting her, and both were dangerous. Both were close to her. She couldn’t dive out of the chair, even if he shouted to her. Her wrists were zip-tied to the arms of the chair. There were blood and fingers on the floor around the chair. His heart dropped.

He pulled a gun from his belt and took aim at Derrick, going through the second shot to Patrick over and over in his mind until he could will the bullet to hit exactly where he needed it to. Both men were likely to have a manual switch to activate the bombs and blow up the building. They’d do so without hesitation if they knew they were dying.

He moved to the right of the door to keep Azelie from the line of fire, squeezed the trigger and shifted aim to Patrick, firing a second bullet. He followed the shots with two more to ensure both men were dead. As he fired the second rounds, he sprinted across the room to Azelie.

He wouldn’t have recognized her swollen, bruised face. Both eyes were nearly closed, and her lips were cut. Derrick had used his knife to cut into her thighs, slashing lacerations into the muscles.

“I’m here, Solnyshkuh. You’re safe.” She’ll need your skills, Steele. He beat the shit out of her, but he also cut her with a knife several times. Thighs. Maestro cut through the zip ties to free her wrists. “Stay still, baby. I’ve got you now.”

The sound of gunshots had her crying out, her fingers forming a fist in his shirt, holding on tightly.

“The boys have this,” he said with total confidence. “They’re mopping up, clearing the way to get you out of here.” While he assured her, he turned his body slightly to make certain he blocked her from the door while he inspected the wounds in her thighs.

Arterial blood?

No, not deep, just quite a few. He cut the muscle in both thighs. I doubt she could get far if by a miracle she got away.

He lifted her, cradling her close, whispering how sorry he was that he was hurting her. It didn’t matter that she was covered in blood, urine and sweat. He’d grown up with open wounds and the disturbing physical ramifications of torture on the human body. It sucked that he was well versed in those things, but right now, when his woman needed comfort and care, he knew the right things to say and do.

Keys and Player met him at the door. Keys led the way back through the tunnel at a run, Maestro following smoothly and Player bringing up the rear. Steele waited in a van, his medical bag already open. He had treated hundreds of children, teens, men and women for the types of wounds and trauma that Azelie had experienced.

Maestro climbed in beside her, retaining possession of her hand. “Steele’s got you, babe. I’m right here and you’re safe.”

TWENTY

“I wish I could have seen the way the merry widows distracted the outside security guards,” Azelie said. “It must have been hilarious.”

Maestro was finding it hard to retain a sense of humor, even though Code had footage of the three women flirting and acting like tourists when they approached the security guards. Doug played the part of China’s long-suffering husband while she prattled on about dancing and what was the difference between the Adventure Club and the Pleasure Train.

The swelling had gone down quite a bit on Azelie’s face, but she was still heavily bruised, and her lower lip was a mess. She would have scars. She had stitches in both thighs, three places in her right thigh. One laceration had been deep enough that she’d had to have stitches inside and outside.

He was happy to have her in Caspar at his home. The first few days she’d been on the coast with him had been spent in Steele’s home, where Steele could watch her closely for infection. Knife wounds tended to become infected. Sometimes the stab wound wasn’t that deep or in any way life-threatening, but the bacteria on the blade was deadly.

“Code has video with audio,” he told her, trying to contain restless energy by pacing up and down the length of the bedroom.

He hadn’t thought about decorating his home when he’d first bought it, other than with his piano and other musical instruments. He had an extremely large workshop that was well stocked with every kind of tool he could possibly want or need. But his house…He hadn’t really considered it home, and he rarely stayed there.

While Azelie was at Steele’s, he had a very good bed brought in, along with a few other items Lana and Alena helped him choose. Breezy, Steele’s wife, sat with Azelie while he was gone, reassuring her that she was safe and so were her friends. His brothers and sisters in the club hastily put his house together, including stocking the pantry and refrigerator.

Maestro wanted the chance to be alone with her. He liked taking care of her, but now that she was there, looking pale beneath her bruised and swollen face and body, he feared he might have insisted on bringing her home too early.

“You’re frowning.”

He wasn’t. Inside maybe, but he had on his expressionless mask she wasn’t supposed to be able to read. He deliberately scowled. “Zelie, you aren’t supposed to be able to read me. I’m the one that reads you.”

She flashed a small smile and then gasped, putting her hand over her lower lip where the gash had been sewn. “Don’t make me laugh.”

His scowl deepened. “You’re supposed to take the things I say very seriously. There are rules in place for a reason.”

“Well, give me the reason, because I always know when you’re frowning. I don’t like you upset and need to do something to make things better.”

“I’ll look like a fuckin’ pussy if I show too much concern. You have no idea how I’ve already had to eat my words, thanks to you. If the others have any idea how you’ve wrapped me around your little finger, I’ll never live it down. At least pretend you can’t read me.”

She tilted her head and studied the mask that settled over his face. He might joke with her in an effort to put things right between them, but how was he ever going to make what happened to her right? He couldn’t. Her eyes were still a little swollen and very bruised, but she still gave him that penetrating look of hers. She knew he was bullshitting her, trying to throw her off the subject.

If he voiced his underlying fear aloud, it would give her an opening to tell him she wanted to leave as soon as she was able. The worst of it was he knew the merry widows and Doug and Carlton were on their way from San Francisco. Doug had called and made it very clear that they were coming to see “their” girl, whether he approved or not. It wasn’t said in so many words, but the resolution was there. She would have a way back to San Francisco if she wanted to leave.

He knew the merry widows would take care of her. They’d be more than glad to have her in their homes while she was recovering. He might be able to convince them the doctor didn’t want her traveling yet, that the danger of infection was still too high.